For Obama, foreign crises grow more challenging

FILE - This July 18, 2014, file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking about the situation in Ukraine in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. Obama stated the obvious: We live in a complex world and at a challenging time. The confluence of swiftly moving overseas matters comes at a time when the American publics views on Obamas foreign policy have been souring, turning what was once seen as his strength into a potential liability. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - This March 11, 2014 file photo shows Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, speaks to reporters after an all-member classified briefing on Ukraine on Capitol Hill in Washington. The U.S. and its negotiating partners agreed to extend nuclear negotiations with Iran for four months rather than allow talks to collapse as a Sunday, July 20, deadline loomed. Increased economic pressure would strengthen our hand, but the administration opposes it, said Royce. It should welcome congressional efforts to ratchet up the economic pressure on Iran, he said. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Israeli soldiers ride near the border with Gaza, Saturday, July 19, 2014. Israel pounded Hamas rocket launchers, uncovered more than a dozen cross-border tunnels and engaged in gunbattles with Palestinian militants Saturday, as fighting intensified on the second day of its open-ended ground operation in Gaza, as the Palestinian death toll continued to rise. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

The wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, early Saturday, July 19, 2014. World leaders demanded Friday that pro-Russia rebels who control the eastern Ukraine crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 give immediate, unfettered access to independent investigators to determine who shot down the plane. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A toy is seen amidst debris from a destroyed house, hit by an Israeli strike, in Beit Lahiya, Saturday, July 19, 2014. Palestinian officials reported intensified Israeli airstrikes, shelling and numerous civilian casualties. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the new round of strikes raised the death toll from the 12-day offensive to more than 330 Palestinians, many of them civilians and nearly a fourth of them under the age of 18. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Surveying a dizzying array of international crises, President Obama stated the obvious: “We live in a complex world and at a challenging time.”

And then suddenly, only a day later, the world had grown much more troubling, the challenges even more confounding.

The downing Thursday of a passenger plane carrying nearly 300 people spread the impact of the standoff between Ukraine and Russia far around the globe. The prospect of more Mideast casualties was assured when Israel launched a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip after efforts to arrange a cease-fire between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed.

Yet there was a ray of hope elsewhere at week’s end with the announcement that the United States and its negotiating partners had agreed to extend nuclear negotiations with Iran for four months rather than allowing the talks to collapse as a Sunday deadline neared.

Still, there’s no guarantee of overcoming stubborn differences with Iran and reaching a final agreement. Obama also will have to find a way to stave off pressure from members of Congress, including some fellow Democrats, who see the extension as a stalling tactic by Iran and are anxious to further penalize Tehran.

“Increased economic pressure would strengthen our hand, but the administration opposes it,” said Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It should welcome congressional efforts to ratchet up the economic pressure on Iran.”

The cascade of overseas developments comes as the American public’s views about Obama’s foreign policy have soured, turning what was once seen as his strength into a potential liability. For a second-term president already hamstrung on the domestic front, the world stage hardly looks like the refuge it sometimes has offered leaders in their final White House years.

Obama has said repeatedly that a world in turmoil demands American leadership, but this burst of new challenges is showing the limits of that leadership.

Fresh American economic sanctions on Russia couldn’t stop the missile attack on the Malaysia Airlines plane, which U.S. officials believe was carried out by pro-Kremlin separatists aided by Moscow. Obama was also unable to persuade the European Union to join him in penalties aimed at Russia’s most powerful economic sectors, settling instead for more tepid EU actions that strained efforts to portray a united Western front against Vladimir Putin’s government.

In the Middle East, Israel began its assault in Gaza despite objections by the U.S. and the prospect of mounting civilian casualties.

The urgent international issues add to the pile of foreign policy challenges already causing headaches for the White House: Syria’s persistent civil war, the rise of Sunni extremists in Iraq, China’s increased aggression in territorial disputes in Asia.

The White House insists the U.S. is better off under Obama’s foreign policy leadership, citing as one example his commitment to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he inherited from President George W. Bush.

“I think that there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way that has substantially furthered American interests and substantially improved the tranquility of the global community,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Obama and his advisers have tried to project a measured approach to dealing with the deepening instability. Obama stuck to plans to hold fundraisers in New York and a transportation event in Delaware on Thursday, after the plane was downed and Israel began military operations. Obama also carried on with plans to spend the weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains.

The strategy reflects the view of the White House that there is a danger in presidents believing they are presiding over circumstances or events that dwarf the challenges faced by their predecessors. Such thinking, Obama’s aides say, can lead to overreach as presidents think that extraordinary measures are required and that their decisions can bypass the normal checks and balances.

To Obama’s critics, that approach smacks of timidity and restraint that have left both foes and friends more willing to dismiss his warnings as empty threats.

For a brief moment over the past few days, it appeared the White House was on offensive, not just reacting to world events.

Obama’s remarks Wednesday on the world’s complexity and challenges came as he announced the most stringent American economic sanctions yet against Russia for its threatening moves in Ukraine. The package of penalties took aim at some of Russia’s most powerful banks, energy entities and defense companies, and received grudging praise from Republicans.

But within 24 hours, the landscape shifted on Obama again, as reports of the downed plane surfaced.

There is some hope among Obama aides that if a Russian role in the tragedy is proved, it may push European leaders to take the tough action against Moscow they have resisted. But presidential advisers also know that the questions of additional costs and consequences will be pointed back at Obama as well.

yep...tough when you want to blame the last guy, congress, or ATM machines...but you cant..

Bugguy2 wrote:

07/20/2014

Maybe if he spent a week focused on foreign affairs, he would learn enough to make a fair judgment of events. But as we know he is more interested in fund raising, golfing and selfies than in governing.
He has never growen in the position, he is still a community organizer and a bad one at that.

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

07/20/2014

FRIDAY white house DOCUMENT DUMP: news the CM wont report to you ..... The data, which was dumped late Friday afternoon, shows that inflow of youths and children traveling without parents has doubled since 2013, to 57,525 in the nine months up to July 2014. But the number of migrants who cross the border in so-called “family units” has spiked five-fold to 55,420, according . For the Obamanistas what that means is NObama sought public sympathy by pushing an unaccompanied children fable and hiding a huge spike in “family units”. TRUST is not a word you can apply to NObama nor main street media especially since HEADLINE "Obama aides were warned of brewing border crisis"

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

07/20/2014

If a reader believes anything that comes out of the mouths of this administration then this recent quote is for those Obamanistas..... " there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way that has ... substantially improved the -- you know, the tranquility of the -- of the global community.”

GWTW wrote:

07/20/2014

I dont know what our policy is in regards to Russia. We want their help in Syria for regime change ( yeah that will work out) but still want to slap them with more sanctions. Good thing Obama has more flexibility now that he's been elected. Good grief...